


The best

by BlueMoonHound



Series: Lucretia [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, mentions of minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: That spell took a lot out of her.





	The best

**Author's Note:**

> a little situation study for post-jeffandrew.

Lucretia sits down in her office with a sigh. She's feeling rather numb, to be honest. The past few days have been wild-- she woke up from an unintended nap to the knowledge that her friends were still in wonderland, that the Hunger is cresting overhead-- and now it's over. It's done. The creator of the multiplanar 'verse called her the most powerful person he'd ever met.

It wasn't what she was expecting. It was _nothing_ like she was expecting, and she's reeling from just, the intensity of the past however-long-she's-been-awake. Lucretia leans her staff against the desk. She loosens her grip on it and her heart rate spikes and she reels and pulls it close to her instead, putting her head down on the desk. She takes a deep breath. She's utterly exhausted, but even now, she's not sure she can sleep.

She stays there for a moment, focused on her breathing. A throb in the back of her skull makes itself known. Her hands ache like they've been burned. Her eyes feel heavy in their sockets. As usual, her feet hurt from so much standing, but that's not surprising, and it's easier to ignore.

Time passes.

Lucretia pushes herself up, her body protesting at the movement, despite her caution. She sets her staff on the ground, leaning into it, feeling older than she's ever felt and weaker than she's ever been. (Even right after wonderland, she didn't feel this old; she didn't feel like she'd been alive for eternity, like she has no energy left.) She takes a step, and another. Her vision is glazed, even white in places, but if she can't sleep she might as well be working.

First order of business: Find some coffee. She's absolutely useless right now, and maybe coffee will make her feel a little better. It won't cure her aches and pains, won't fix her sleeping problems (that's for sure), but maybe with a cup of coffee she can keep going till she collapses. She starts drifting again, the grounded sensation that lying on the desk gave her now gone. She supposes it makes sense; she probably couldn't handle working through this kind of pain.

Lucretia lifts her head up, walks past Taako and Davenport talking on the green, past Karey and Killian, cleaning each others' wounds and Angus and Magnus, eating sandwiches. She heads towards the cafeteria, finds herself that cup of coffee, and then turns around. She heads in the direction of the elevator, and takes it to the bottom floor.

Lucretia heads straight towards the voidfish room.

Fischer's tank is shattered, glass all over the ground. She stares at the fractured edges of glass along the bottom of the tank. She takes a deep swallow of coffee, just a little grounding, hot enough to burn her tongue. But then the other aches in her body chase that away, and she's a few feet out again, watching.

She's not sure why she came here.

(she used to sit with the voidfish when she was scared. Usually Junior, but either of them. Her mind careens towards cycle 65, any cycle where she was mostly alone, after they found them.)

Her chest is tight and painful. Her ribs ache, adding to the feeling of intense abstraction she's been experiencing in the past hour. She puts a hand on the glass, heedless of the fact that it's definitely sharp, not safe to be touched. She stares at the back wall, the feathery pattern of glass that runs up the back of the tank where it didn't quite shatter. She takes another swallow of coffee, feeling it slide down her throat and through her body in a hot wave.

“Lucretia?”

She jumps at the voice. Her brain goes in fifteen directions all at once-- Cycle 66, wine in a mud bath, meeting the little dwarf who would be accompanying her on her first big job, a sound of surprise at learning her name, learning her name _again_ , how she didn't think she could handle them knowing her name, but managed to deal with it anyway. She turns around, perhaps a little too fast, and the hand that was on the glass has to move quickly to grab her staff so she doesn't fall over. She stumbles anyway, spilling scalding coffee onto her hand. She masks it by taking another drink from the mug, and straightens.

“Merle,” she says, her voice sounding far away (and too close, right in her bones, in her head, behind her eyes.)

Merle's sitting on a step leading towards Johann's desk (oh gods, Johann, his body is still lying on the floor –) with one hand on his soulwood arm, the other resting on his knee. Lucretia takes a step back. He probably came here to be alone, to think.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to walk in on you.” She turns to leave, gripping her staff tighter to keep the world from rocking around her.

She hears him stand as she's walking towards the door. “Lucretia, wait!” he says. “Are you okay?”

“I don't think any of us are,” She says. It's as good an answer as any.

“Bring it back a little, I don't mean in the grand scheme of things-- you burned your hand for sure,” Merle says. His voice sounds closer, till suddenly he's right in front of her, and she flinches. The long, endless day and the pains therein catch up to her all of a sudden and her legs can't support her anymore. She lands on her knees in the glass, a dozen bright spots of pain bringing her a little closer to the present. She tries to steady herself, tries to take a deep breath, and fails. Merle's saying her name, but she finds that she can't respond, there's a hand on her shoulder, wetness on her cheeks.

The white static that was creeping up on her threatens to engulf her vision, and her headache makes a reappearance, her ribs _ache_ , her _hands_ ache. Her left hand – the one which had been against the glass- it stings. Her knees throb. She sucks in a breath. Merle's saying something again, and she struggles to pull herself together, hopelessly overwhelmed. A hand takes away her coffee mug. She hugs her staff.

“Madam director, _Lucretia_ , please, can you hear me, _what do you need_?”

Lucretia hiccups. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Merle, I'm--”

“Hey. Lucy. Creesha. Luce. It's okay. You know what's not okay? You're hurt. Come on. Let's go somewhere safer and I can heal you.” He rubs her arms through her sleeves as he talks, and she notices the blood on the Bulwark staff. She can feel herself fading again, and she puts an extra ounce of effort into holding it together, holding herself here, enough in her body that she can at least hear what Merle is saying.

He helps her stand, one hand on her lower back to steady her as he guides her towards the stairway. He sits her down on the steps, proceeding to pick glass out of her knees. Her head throbs. She rubs her temples. That spell – it took a lot out of her. Her mouth feels dry. It's been hours, and her head still hurts from that goddamn spell, she still feels like she'll never be magical again because she's so thoroughly _drained_.

Merle murmurs something and Lucretia feels the warmth of a healing spell wash through her body. For some reason, it just exhausts her. Maybe the pain was keeping her awake. She feels herself fall forward, and Merle's there to catch her, to let her rest on his shoulder, and somehow this is fine, this is okay. The bulwark staff hums at her side, she lets out a breath, and consciousness slides out from under her like a perfectly tugged tablecloth.

 

Lucretia wakes up.

For a moment all she knows is she's awake; she can't find it in her to open her eyes, to move her head. She lies there, and listens.

Someone turns a page. The sound of paper is oddly calming, something that's stayed with her for over a century, her entire life. (She supposes it's not _that_ strange.)

She pries her eyes open. A ceiling. Dim lights, probably a lantern. There's a dull throbbing in her head, an ache in her right hand, pain in her feet. Her vision is a bit clouded, but it's more of a sleep feeling than an exhaustion one, like she's been sleeping for hours and hours.

When was the last time she slept for more than four hours? She can't remember. Probably several years ago. It's not always unhealthy. Some nights she gets a good seven or so hours of sleep, but wakes from a nightmare somewhere in the middle. Right now, though, it feels like she's woken from an eternity of rest.

She takes a deep breath, in her nose, out her mouth. It makes the pain in her ribs throb a little brighter, but she doesn't choke on her own lungs. In fact, she feels fairly calm. As carefully as she can manage, Lucretia turns her head to the side, to see who is sitting with her.

To her surprise, it's none other than Angus Mcdonald. He notices that she's awake and his bright amber eyes widen, his ears flicking forward. A grin breaks across his face. “Madam director! Good morning!”

“It's morning?” Her voice is raspy.

“Around ten, Ma'am, yes,” Angus says. He closes his book. “How are you feeling? Merle said you took quite a beating during the final stand.”

“I don't know,” Lucretia says, attempting to sit up. She falls back on the bed when the world spins violently around her, head pulsating with pain. “Nevermind. Now I know.” She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.

“Oh dear,” says Angus. “I'll be right back.”

She wants to tell him not to leave, but he's already gone. She realizes how alone she is-- there's no one here, no one at all, not even her fucking staff is here she can't see it it's gone what if someone destroyed it, she rolls onto her side and curls up and forces herself not to panic. It's a struggle, especially given that she's already panicking.

Heavy footfalls come into the room and she curls in tighter. “Lucy, it's just me!” Magnus. She takes a deep breath, feeling the warmth and companionship and hospitality that just follows Magnus around waft off of him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she replies. Her voice is tiny.

“Angus is getting Merle. I thought you might like company,”

“Yes, thank you,” She sighs. She unfurls a little and rolls back onto her back so she can see Magnus. He takes her hand and rubs little circles on it.

“I'm gonna give you a backrub, when you're feeling better, and it's gonna be the best goddamn backrub you ever did have.”

Lucretia chuckles. “If you say so.”

“I _do_ say so.”

“How long was I asleep?”

“Like, 20 hours? A long time.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.”

Merle comes in, Angus close behind. He casts another healing spell, and the pain in Lucretia's head and torso eases. She sighs and sits up. “What's been going on in the last twenty hours? Goodness. _Twenty hours_. I don't think I've slept that much since cycle sixty-six.”

“Mostly just cleanup. Taako kept complaining that you weren't there. I'm not sure if he was angry or worried.”

“Probably both,” says Merle.

Angus retakes his seat on the other side of the bed and picks up his book. Predictably, it's a Caleb Cleveland book. He doesn't open it, though. It sits in his lap.

“Well, he has a right to be upset.” She swings her legs out of the bed. It's not the bed in her hidden chambers, obviously – she's still not sure if anyone knows where those are, beyond the front room and office where she kept Junior. This is the small bureau infirmary: four beds surrounded by pale blue curtains and a wall full of healing potions and spell components. She finds that she is barefoot, and the bulwark staff is under the bed a little. It's been mostly quiet since she cast that spell, but it thrums in her grasp when she lifts it from the ground.

“I've been lonely,” she says. “So thank you. I'll be in my office if you need me.” She sets off across campus.

Lucretia finds herself a cup of coffee, and begins asking after everyone who was under her command. Johann is dead, along with several of the guards. A few people were injured at various levels of severity, but the clerics on hand have seen to them.

She retreats to her office and picks up a journal. She finds a pen. She begins to write the truth, because as far as Lucretia is concerned, that's what she does best.

**Author's Note:**

> Been writing some one-shots while I slowly work my way through a very long blupjeans fic. (seriously. Ive been writing this one fic since before I finished No Halo.) This is an idea thats been drifting around in my mind for a while - how hard is it to recover from casting the most powerful spell in the universe?


End file.
